I get so tired of people acting as if political party dictates the values of our citizens. In my view, it might order those values, but there are some key issues that we all agree on. Who do I mean by 'we all'. Well check out this message board from an independent newspaper in Nebraska. What is so amazing about this? This is the most contentious message board you could probably find. We've duked it out on poverty, healthcare, rape, abortion, religion, etc., ad nauseam. But when it comes to the first ammendment and independent Nebraskans, 9 out of 10 agree.
Some of these posters I have never agreed with on any issue, some have literally called me liberal epithets and repulsive names for arguing very basic progressive causes. We've beaten and battered each other, and yet, HERE, HERE, is where we all come together. If Barack Obama can harness THIS, then he will be one of the greatest President's in history, and I have no doubt he can harness this. He explains how better than I:
The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job. After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart. It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for. It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion. But that's our job. And I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.